


Switchable City

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M, Multi, Other, Wildly OOC, aw fucc man i dunno, homeless teens, poly relationships eventually, probs drugs n stuff, theres like magic n stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 12:24:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8445733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: This has got to be the strangest day Combeferre has ever had.Strangest past three days, actually. Starting with the one where his parents were shot in an alley. He’s feeling unfortunately Batman. It started with that, was led up by being shoved into the back of a muggers car, and is currently in a space of a beautiful stranger who smells like wood smoke and has a charcoal wreath of black ink wavering around their head. Their hair is so dark it seems like you could smudge it across paper with your thumb.(or in which kids are homeless and somehow faeries)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OKay,,, so, my first fic on archive! ahahaha! oh god!  
> 1- i have no fucking idea whats going on  
> 2- this is the textbook definition of a work in progress  
> 3- seriously  
> 4- there will be underage drinking, drug use, descriptions of violence ect. so TW for that kiddos stay safe  
> 5- great googly moogly its all gone to shit

He's sitting across from me, and everything is dripping sad. It's morning, and it's grey and cold and the wind could rattle my bones if they weren't so youthful and disaffected.  
I take a drag of my cigarette, which I don't even like. The dryness always hurts my throat.  
He doesn't say anything, but he keeps looking at me. Old tears make his eyes seem extra saturated, like there are just a couple more layers of them than anything else. 

 

I get the distinct feeling that I’m pretty out of my fucking depth and don't even have the tact to freak out about it. Breathing in, I break the silence. “Am I supposed to say something profound and surprising now?”  
I eye him from behind the smoke and flick some ash away over the roof.  
Breathing out.  
To his credit, he doesn't even blink. He also still doesn't say anything. Just hugs his knees to his chest a little tighter, like if he wraps himself up nice and pretty he can just fold and fold until you can't see him, even with a microscope.

 

I wish I was warmer. 

 

He really wasn’t supposed to be here. He’s got on a cardigan, for Christ’s sake. He’s also got glasses and curly hair and middle dark skin that looks pale right now, and warm brown eyes. Honey whiskey eyes. I think there’s blood on his T-shirt.  
We sit and listen to cars, he watches me. I don’t watch him. 

 

“I-I uh,” He pushes up his glasses and finally looks away, and it’s like a spell is broken. His lips are wide and symmetrical and lovely, I think. I stop thinking.  
Clothing rustles as he breathes in, in, in, and I see an ocean receding inside his lungs. A little boat floats at the surface, it bops up and down with each inhale, exhale, inhale.  
I exhale.  
I stub out my cancer stick and tug my sleeves.  
I look at his lips more than is necessary.  
I swear I try not too.  
Or, really, thats a lie, because love is fine. Liking things is fine. I’m fine. But a knee jerk reaction is a knee jerk reaction, and old habits die fucking hard. Really fucking hard. He might’ve just been talking. 

 

“Huh?” I spin out of starland, back into orbit. 

 

“My name is Combeferre.” 

 

“God bless you.” 

 

I get a watery smile. I applaud myself. 

 

“How’d you spell that, then?” Fidget, fidget. I wish I had a cigarette.  
He tells me how, I politely forget.  
“I’m R.” I reach out a cold bitten and half nail polished hand. He shakes it, in every sense of the word. I don’t want to let go, one because his palm is smooth, a shade lighter than his skin, and two because I know trembles. So I don’t let go, and I think he’s weirded out, but with the treatment he’s most definitely received from the rest of the company today it’s likely this is very fucking outlandish. Hair blows into my eyes, my hair, thankfully, that’d be weird and terrible if it was some strangers. I push it away and try to squash the thought process before it goes off the rails. I run a thumb over his knuckles, and it’s impossible not to notice his hands are very nice. My fingernails have all kinds of yuck under them, on them, paint, ink, yuck. I like the yuck, usually. But clean hands next to these ones make me feel somehow summed up to one value of dirty vs clean. I’m very deliberately not looking at his face. 

 

We end up walking the streets. It’s too cold not to be moving, and this kid needs to know the ropes. It’s really a damn shame he ended up here instead of foster care, sometimes you can get sent somewhere where the parents are legally compliant to not treat you bad. I don’t actually know much, though, so maybe he’s lucky. I don’t know just how different I’d be if this wasn’t my home. Probably pretty unhappy.  
We slip past vendors selling coats, strings of beads, fake silver jewelry, love. I snatch a big leather jacket much too big for me while the guy isn’t looking. Combeferre looks affronted. 

 

“Why would you do that?” He hisses at me. 

 

I slip an arm through as we scuttle away and grin. “Gotta steal to eat.”

 

“Did you just quote Aladdin?” 

 

“What? It’s my favorite movie.” 

 

____________________

 

This has got to be the strangest day Combeferre has ever had. 

 

Strangest past three days, actually. Starting with the one where his parents were shot in an alley. He’s feeling unfortunately Batman. It started with that, was led up by being shoved into the back of a muggers car, and is currently in a space of a beautiful stranger who smells like wood smoke and has a charcoal wreath of black ink wavering around their head. Their hair is so dark it seems like you could smudge it across paper with your thumb. 

 

They glance sideways at him. A smile tugs at their mouth and Combeferre feels flowers bloom in his abdomen, then the flowers into butterflies, then the butterflies into wasps. He’s so drained he can barely track what this means.  
The stranger, oh wait R, is at least a head taller than him. They’re also clad mostly in baggy black, which could be emo but is instead charming and clearly unintentional, and therefore authentic.  
The two of them walk the twists and turns of the city, and R eventually takes his hand as to not loose him in the bustling morning crowds. 

 

Before Combeferre knows it, he’s smiling, because R is giggling and dashing under arms and over benches all while refusing to give up sovereignty of his hand. Their hair follows them, billowing in and out like a spirit grudgingly tied to its host, gravity, by honor, and who also likes to remind everyone as much as possible that it can defy it whenever it pleases. 

 

We are two balloons blowing in the breeze.  
\----------------  
I own a guitar, the clothes on my body. I think I have a lighter in my pocket. Back home, there’s a pipe Monty and I share, but if I ever took it he’d beat my ass so I guess it’s not really mine.  
Today, a lucky day, I have five dollars in my pocket. Next to, yeah I was right, my lighter. 

 

Combeferre is still holding my hand which is very nice and warm. He’s looking around in a way that makes me want to jump up and down and shake passersby shoulders, shouting, ‘Do you see this angel boy? There is nothing vile in him regardless to his surroundings.’  
I am sorely tempted but I think that it would freak someone out.  
Spotting a food truck that doesn’t look like it breaks a lot of FDA regulations is tough, but I find one and steer us over. The only thing on the menu I can afford is sweet potato fries, and I hate sweet potatoes, but I’m fucking hungry damn it. And Combeferre probably likes sweet potatoes just fine. I have a small moment considering the possibility that he, like, was so sheltered he’s never eaten anything but mashed potatoes and maybe he fucking hates potatoes but I realize pretty fast that that doesn’t make any sense and tell the man at the truck I need some sweet potato fries, stat. I don’t say stat out loud though because that’d be rude. 

 

Sometimes my brain convinces me that life is only trying to escape discomfort, or embarrassment. But then I look at him smiling at me, like this kid just goddamn loves sweet potatoes or something, and god if being embarrassed isn't the most beautiful thing I’ve ever gotten to be. Every cell in my body screams to be impatient and every other cell screams to turn to stone and stay right here and let him walk away, let the concrete crumble to dust, as long as I can do nothing wrong. 

 

But everything is really wrong so it’s okay if I mess up sometimes. 

 

We take the fries and we keep walking. 

 

________________________________  
What if your glasses break? How would I get you new glasses? Are you ever going to be okay? Stop shaking? I’m sorry you won’t see those people again. Things are getting bigger and bigger on my end and I feel like I’ll drown in their shadow before it can even topple over to crush me. 

 

_________________________

 

Things are fuzzy and I’m tired, and every time my mind comes back to me it’s like a punch in the gut, and yet I still have time to see this. I don’t know what to do in general, how I’m going to eat, where I’ll sleep, what I’ll do if my glasses break. But more than anything I don’t know how I’m going to stop looking at R while we sit on a bench around a fountain and eat our food. Which they paid for, without even blinking, even though I know they don’t have money to spare. Their hair blows past their shoulders, they drag it back behind pierced ears. I hear music in each movement. I want to write it down.  
Their ankles are crossed, knees idling bouncing, one hand stuck between their thighs for warmth and the other nibbling on a fry. Amber low strings pluck in my ears. 

 

__________________________

 

Last night started with a bang.  
For R, it was the bang of their bedroom door and the pouring in of voices, tumultuous waves of chatter in varying degrees of severity. In the middle of the tsunami it was still; it was Combeferre. He didn’t say anything. Bolts kept his feet anchored in the floorboards. He looked across the expanse of my tiny, empty room, and the creaking wood separating us was a void. 

 

For Combeferre, it was the bang that killed his mother. By the bang that killed his father, the night had really begun. 

 

He guesses that now he should really be feeling some things about it. It’s just that he seriously never sees- saw- his parents. He went to Glory Hearts Catholic Academy for Gifted Students, he didn’t go home even for Christmas, and he was with his parents then only because the press liked to seen them valuing family. He started mourning the loss of his mom and dad a long time ago. 

 

If anything, the most jarring factor was the change of habitat- living at a boarding school all year and parts of the summer gives you a lot of things, but it most definitely does not give you street smarts.  
The people who did it-who killed them- knew who his parents were, and had some problems with their political standings. They said quite a few choice words on the topic, in fact. By the time the gun was pointed at Combeferre, a crowd had been drawn, and someone decided a child was more valuable than a corrupted adult.  
Mostly, Combeferre remembered the absolute darkness of the sky as he was pulled to safety. 

 

_____________________________

 

Monday morning, R knows he is supposed to pick up Combeferre from his room and “find something to do with him all day”. He knows that. But when he wakes up, it’s pitch black, and the silence and the dark is so much like the bottom of the ocean that he ends up spending two hours just lying there soaking it in. He finds out it was two hours only after the fact, when he can’t find Combeferre in his room and Thenardier tells him Mont took him out to the parlor for the day. 

 

“Fuck, fuck fuck fuck shit fuck.” He eloquently reacts. 

 

The parlor is not a good place for newbies, and normally he wouldn’t care, but he really really doesn’t want Combeferre to get freaked out and try to leave because no matter how weird the parlor is anything outside of it would be about ten times worse. And not from weirdness.  
He sighs, shoves his hair into a braid, and gets a goddamn move on. 

 

_____________________________________

 

Oh huh,  
Combeferre thinks. It’s a variation of every other thought that’s come into his head since the slick looking boy with sharp flinty eyes came for him this morning. He had knocked on the door to the… room? Closet? And promptly announced that someone with a confusing name was to have him take Combeferre to the parlor. Where they now were. 

 

A man walks by who appears to have no pupil to his eye and a green tint to his skin and that old record runs again only this time he kind of wants to cry out of confusion.  
He was really wondering what had happened to R. He felt empty, comparing this experience to yesterday and the food and the walking. He hadn’t seen them all day. 

 

The parlor had been named aptly, with thick red ornate carpets that were sure to be worn thin in most places if you looked close enough. Fortunately, it was nearly impossible to look close enough because of the heavy smoke that hung in the air, which stung Combeferre’s eyes and made him a little dizzy if he stood up too fast. He had been sitting at a barstool facing the long shining shelves of liquor, while the sharp boy tended the bar and sent smug looks his way that lingered a bit too long for comfort. It was hard to say if it was flirtatious or threatening.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shenanigans ensue.
> 
> (does anyone else fantasize about R singing saloon style with smoky low lighting and a glittering green dress? is that just me?)

This is where Grantaire was born. In the smoke, among the vines and roots and earth. His soul is lined with the heady fumes, the ornate tables piled with fruit. The sweat that glimmers on upper lips, biceps, the blood and the glitter.  
He was born into indulgence and the wild, and he would never be able to settle for less when coming from true euphoria. Real bliss. 

 

Which is why he is super fucking uncomfortable with the idea of Combeferre just, hanging out there. He would still choose this, he knows, if he ever was given the choice, but he doesn’t know Combeferre despite wanting too. Doesn’t know if he’d want anything to do with real bliss.  
He seems pretty decent, so R isn’t really banking on his initiation to the sultry cult of Hellenism. 

 

By the time he’s standing in the doorway of the parlor, he’s sweating, panting, and freaking out a little less now that he’s here. The room is thick with bodies, people and creatures clad in eccentricities not even the unconventional task of Project Runway could match.  
You could even say they would give them a run for their money. Get it? Because- okay no, finding Combeferre.  
His hips knock into tables, food topples to the ground, and he gets a couple looks nearly as dirty as the carpets themselves. Whatever. He knows Monty moonlights on Mondays, so Combeferre should probably be at the bar. Fuck, he hopes he didn’t eat anything. 

 


	3. black holes and revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HOOTYHOO guess who forgot to update this HAH also enter: enjolras! fuck!

__________________________________

 

Combeferre seriously almost cries when he finally spots R’s wild face in the crowd. The smoke and humidity does nothing for their hair- It looks as though it’s meant to be a braid, but honestly, if he thought it had a mind of it’s own yesterday, today it has it’s own legs, too.   
There’s something else different about them today- something more masculine, definitive in the way they hold their shoulders. Combeferre should ask. What’s the etiquette for that again?   
It might be the smoke- which is likely because Combeferre is very dizzy- but it looks as though R is just as relieved to see him and he is them.   
The relief morphs into concern and Combeferre realizes that he is crying, a little bit. Oops. 

 

“Oh no, heyy…” R envelopes him in a hug with strong arms and Combeferre is powerless. He feels disgusted with himself, left alone in a new place for not even an hour and he’s breaking down like a kid. 

 

“No, no no no… It’s okay,” They say, as though reading his thoughts. R sighs.  
“I’m real sorry, ferre.”  
Combeferre groans what he hopes sounds like “It’s not your fault” from where his head is planted firmly in R’s chest. R’s very broad, flat chest. He should really ask. He picks up his head to do just that, but R’s attention is diverted, looking right to left and actually putting his palm on the back of Combeferre’s hair to cradle him back in again. He’s pretty sure he makes a very undignified yelp at that, but then R is stroking his hair and murmuring later, sorry, and he is once again helpless. He wants to struggle, try to get out of this mess without looking like a complete fool, but R is already dragging him away from the bar and out of the parlor.   
Combeferre spares one glance back to the sharp one, who looks a little sad to see him go. Flirtatious, then, he supposes.   
_____________________________

 

The first week of June is so very, very long since past. Grantaire aches. His nose is dry, his hands are chapped, clothes screech against his skin. Every morning, he has been woken to the sound of rushing water, crashing, tumbling waves, but it’s not there and he could scream.   
But he doesn’t scream, he picks up another can of beer.   
And then another.   
He drowns. 

 

It’s when Eponine comes around that he starts to feel a little bad about it. Ep already has to deal with her dad, the family business, she shouldn’t have to uphold so much. Certainly not Grantaire, because he weighs a lot. Probably.   
But here she is, pretty much carrying him to the bathroom. (To be honest, if anyone could hold up R, it’s Eponine. Eponine is ripped).   
She puts him down by the toilet, but R doesn’t need to vomit. The lurching of his stomach doesn’t give him anything but nostalgia now. He sits with his head resting on the lid, saying nothing, being nowhere. 

 

She knows that, though. She’s already at the tub, already turning the knob, water already rushing a rusty brown. She’s already left and R has already sloshed quite a bit of water onto the white tiles in his efforts, his flannel floating in a soggy tent around him. It’s never quite enough.  
The water feels dirty and thin, tinny, against his skin. But it is so much better than the dry, dry, dry winter air.   
He cramps up his knees and slides under the surface and to the right until he’s curled up, fetal position, every inch that can be covered covered.   
The water gushes, the sound wrong but right, the temperature cold and punishing but so, so good. The plant on the windowsill, the ones in his room call to him. They become bright and pulsing behind his eyes, and he drags their light too him. The vines creep down, then up, right, left, under the door, wrap around his ankle. The ones from the window sill simply pour into the bathtub to make his acquaintance. He feels cleaner than he has in awhile. 

 

He makes a note to thank ‘Ponine. 

 

__________________________________________

 

He’s there, in the corner of the shop. I don’t think he knows what he’s doing here, because he keeps looking around like he’s trying to appear as though he understands while simultaneously trying to figure out exactly what is going on. He’s doing a pretty good job at it though, really.   
Light from the window facing the street bounces sunset light into his curls, and they glint like amber gold. His jaw is wide and well defined, with easy dimples and a fierce brow that makes him look like a lion. The shelved books behind him are blazed the same color, faded leather bindings in shades of deep orange and precious yellow. Slender fingers pick up a volume that I believe specializes on the occult properties of lavender. 

 

The sun also turns his flawless red coat into a blaring beacon just screaming “mug me!”, and my brain quite enjoys this ever so convenient beacon.   
I already nicked his wallet when he came in the door, though. Now I’m just watching because he’s really pretty. 

 

The sharp angle of his jaw contrasts the soft line of his throat, his mouth full and flushed by the cold, accompanied by deep color high on his cheekbones, bleeding through dark skin. His curls, too, have been mussed by today's biting wind, and it’s a very effective combination.   
He swallows.  
Very effective.   
He appears desperately confused by the book in his hand, and I decide to take pity on the unfortunate soul. The chimes by the door jingle in a draft, and in a few steps and I’m beside him, viewing his selection closer. It is the one about lavender, I remember because Prouvaire made me read it.  
Brown eyes narrow as he squints at the illustration of pixies, which I admit are unrealistic, what with all the… upper chest exposure. His fingers twitch as he scans the page. I let go a helpless little giggle.   
He starts, eyes wide and curls flouncing. He knocks his shoulder straight into my fucking chin because he’s about half a head taller than me. 

 

“Ow, fuck!” 

 

“Oh god, sorry! Shit!” He fumbles the book, caught between trying to keep his grip on it and having had reached up to cover his mouth in shock. He ends up leaning over to get it, and when he gets back up his face is red as a tomato, blotchiness spreading to his jaw as well as his cheekbones. I’m just laughing harder as I cradle my chin. 

 

“Please, the fault is mine. Just remind me to stay out of the splash zone next time.” I hold out a hand, one still massaging my jaw.  
“I’m R.” I meet his eyes, which are a soothing dark brown. It’s real nice. He takes my hand, still sheepish, but firm in grip regardless. I ponder if he wonders at the irony of a formal introduction after accidently assaulting someone in a bookstore that smells like pot.   
“Gabriel Enjolras. Call me Enjolras.” He says, crinkling his nose a bit on the far end of the sentence.   
I take a dramatic breath. “Gabriel, huh? How evangelical of you.” I look him up and down, as though for the first time.   
“It suits you well, sir.” We release hands. His gazes flits about before settling back on me.   
“Actually, not a sir.” they scratch their arm with the book-free hand. I feel a little jump of guilt for assuming, especially because I hate it when people assume.   
“My apologies! How uncouth,” The laugh comes out a little bitter.   
“I feel very much hypocritical right now. Sorry, but your preference?” Enjolras looks all at once pleasantly surprised, which makes me sad, and righteous, which makes me want to smack them across the face and wrap them enough blankets so that they can’t just go around these parts expecting safety and good mirth. 

 

“She/her, thank you. And you?”   
“Anything is fine, it’s not actually that important to me.” her brow furrows a bit at that, but ultimately Enjolras doesn’t point it out again, just smiles sheepishly and ducks her head.   
I point to the book forgotten in her hands. “Now, whats this?”   
I snatch it from her, dancing backwards, and she reaches forward and cries out in protest. I flip through the pages, making a show of very pretentious, hipster-esque judgment.   
“Oh yes, a classic. Did you know lavender oil can give you hallucinations when it’s too concentrated?” Enjolras just stands, bemused, as I work circles around her.   
“Mhmm, fantastic illustrations in this one. Oh look, here's the ones I did in pen! I thought the outfit design could use some remodeling. ”   
Her eyes bulge and she coughs as she sees my graffiti in the page about proper application to bath water.   
The madame of the shop is absolutely in love with Prouvaire, and so am I, so it’s to nobodies surprise that they have free reign over any book they like. Hence, I, by extension, have free reign over any book Prouvaire likes.   
I let my chipped-paint finger nails skim over the dusty shelves, spinning in a slow circle and relishing the sweet incense smell, cozy warmth permeating the air. I give them the book. When I catch her face again, she’s looking at me strangely, and I could only guess at the shapes flying behind her eyes.  
A smirk curls my lips. “I’m going to take an educated guess, and say this is your first time in the neighborhood,”   
She quirks her eyebrows at me.

 

“You’re wearing bright red and you aren’t Jehan Prouvaire, you practically smell of money, you’re here and you definitely don’t need to be. Oh, and you’re in this shop and you aren’t Jehan Prouvaire.” 

 

Who is the only non-diabolical intentioned being to ever have step foot in this shop. Until today, that is. she shuffles, amused.   
“And who is this Jehan Prouvaire?” 

 

“Only the avenues most cherished angel. Brighter than the sun. Don’t make them get angry at you, though. You wouldn’t survive.” I say this with a cursory glance at her person, and she bristles. She (wisely) keeps her mouth shut.   
I make my way down the dense isle of books, looking over my shoulder and beckoning her to follow. We lace ourselves through the maze of shelves, until I find the beaded curtain doorway to the backroom. Here, the incense thickens and the atmosphere darkens, blotting out the sun. 

 

I finger the seashells that line the table by my right hip while Enjolras nearly trips on the small step in. The ridges have been nearly imperceptibly sharpened. Enjolras looks around a few seconds after we stumble over the half step, a bit of a delayed reaction but as they do, wonder fills her eyes, the yellow lights twinkling in dark brown iris. It only makes her hair lovelier. It is surely my favorite room of the shop, filled to the brim with bits and pieces and tiny hidden things you might’ve cherished as a child. It’s always reminded me of the girl’s bedroom in Labyrinth. Only a little bit darker, and a lot more sketchy. 

 

She ends up becoming enthralled by the older texts in the back corner, and we sit and talk for awhile more. 

 

___________________________________________

 

My heart doesn’t beat it the way it used too. Now I think it moves like the color blue, and the feeling brings up getting stuck in the community pool after closing with all the lights off but the underwater ones. It used to be afraid, I used to be afraid. I remember the before, the jerkiness of movement, not being able to order food because of the terror. Less mood swings more mood slams. And I’m actually serious: I looked it up and my heart beats like five times less than it should per minute. Who needs doctors? 

 

This is what I am thinking about when Combeferre and I walk through the threshold of Enjolras’s haven. It’s a cozy and warm place filled with people who you can actually look at and think nothing but a soft, pleasant: oh.  
I realize very fast that the Magnificent and Only Jehan Prouvaire is in attendance, and we two of us have a very spirited reunion. Needless to say, Combeferre and Enjolras are both a bit flustered when I turn back to around.   
Jehan does have their hand in my back pocket, so to someone who has never dealt with a room with both me and an unrestrained Jehan, (and it takes quite some bodily force to restrain them) it could be a little bit weird.

 

Enjolras doesn’t let me sit on Jehan’s lap when they ask everyone to take a seat.

 

____________________________

 

This. Is. Fucking. Unbearable.  
You know that feeling you get when a straight person starts talking about the injustice of the world? This is like that, but you’re also being blinded by the sun, because hot SHIT if Enjolras doesn’t know how to pull a crowd. Fucking hell.   
I’m not sure, but I might be making a face. Combeferre keeps shooting me worried glances and Enjolras is getting louder. 

 

She’s beautiful. She’s lit up from the inside. She’s burning. 

 

Like a lion, or a planetary force, like the sun. I call Jehan bright because they glow but Enjolras is on fire. With her own gravity. With her own moons.   
Enjolras picks up some papers from her table, taking a little break in speaking. I glance at Combeferre. He seems to be having approximately the same amount of religious experience.   
Good. 

 

______________________________________________


	4. Chapter 4

Combeferre had gotten under Grantaire’s skin in a warm, liquidy way. Like drinking tea. Or smelling flowers. They found themselves thinking of his smiles and smiling in return at nobody, and it made their days nicer. 

 

Today was so good, wet and humid with rain outside. The clouds were tucked comfortable around the horizon.

Combeferre and Grantaire were splayed together on a mattress, a pile of white sheets newly cleaned, dragged in front of the tall drafty window. Combeferre was watching white light from the street spot his hands. Grantaire was watching Combeferre watch white light from the street spot his hands. 

There were noises of clutter from the kitchen echoing up the vents to them, rattling off steel beams and through dust motes revealed by the wide rays of light between them. 

The noises from the street, the sleet hitting the glass panes, cars honking and sliding through slush. It was music, everywhere. 

The air was warm and humid- which meant ratty t-shirts and old cut-off sweatpants. Combeferre was in his boxer shorts, the ones that had little whales on them.

 

He wasn’t bony in any way, all round curves and soft stomach roles. It made him glow. 

There was a soft trail of dark brown hair from his bellybutton to the hem of his boxers, and Grantaire adored it. When R found out that Combeferre had been using ace bandages for binding, there was a twang in his heart and he contacted Jehan about getting him a binder.

 

Not that Jehan had money or any positive relationship with someone who did. 

They were part of the trans safety society thing here- the kind with real funding a real, actually leased buildings for meetings. 

Enjolras’s ragtag crew (which now delightfully included both R and Combeferre) had recently become a part of the organization, with the good word coming straight from Jehan, who was apparently a very trusted representative for queer youth in the city. 

 

Jehan told them with obvious enamorment for R’s concern that they could get him a binder by Saturday. 

For right now, though, he was free of either due to having gotten lightheaded after a full day of binding. R was distracting him from dysphoria (hopefully) by recounting the tales of Dr. Sexy, the “sexiest doctor in the Holy Hills maternity ward”, as the back of the book described. 

 

_

 

“Why isn’t he wearing shoes?” Enjolras asked. 

 

Combeferre cocked his head with a thoughtful expression. 

 

“They don’t seem to like them very much.”

Enjolras made a note of the pronoun usage and filed it away for later. They were sat down together at an outdoor cafe table, watching R, who was indeed shoeless. 

 

They were really feeling today- Combeferre noticed everything about them tended to go looser on good days. No shoes, or flowing patterned skirts, or free falling waves of charcoal. Today was cuffed torn jeans and a sloppy bun, hands searching in puddles for something only they needed. The coffee Enjolras ordered was set on their table by a waitress, and R trotted back to them with a glint of silver in their hand. 

 

“Do you need shoes?” Enjolras asked. She was thoroughly ignored by R, who was incredibly excited, and Combeferre, who loved to see R incredibly excited. 

 

R stooped low so Combeferre could better see into their palms, bouncing on their heels in impatience for Combeferre to see. Whatever was there made Combeferre gasp softly and say “oh!”. 

 

“I know, I know. The lattice isn’t even bent at all.” 

 

“It’s beautiful.” 

 

“What is it?” 

 

Twin curly heads turned to face her owlishly. It felt like breaking a seal on a small moment, but Enjolras didn’t feel the need to bristle at the lonliness or exclusion. They were clearly happy to share. 

R informed her, still bouncing, this time leaning into Enjolras’s space, that it was a locket. Enjolras brushed curls with them in the lean forward. Feathers of warmth unfurled in her abdomen. The locket was lovely, in a dreamy way. The clasp was rusted shut, and Enjolras blew on her coffee while R stained their knees on cobblestones to let Combeferre clasp the chain around their neck. 

_

 


End file.
